Indians oficially ends long league drought

ATGLEN — Unionville head coach Chris Matz knew exactly how long it had been since the Indians won a league title. Back when he was a senior at Unionville in 1986, his squad won the Southern Chester County League, beginning a championship run that culminated with a title in 1990.

The drought officially came to an end Wednesday night following a 54-16 win over an undermanned Octorara team.

“It’s been 23 long years since Unionville has won a league title,” said Matz. “That’s been the goal all twelve years I’ve coached here. We’ve had some pretty good teams along the way, too. But tonight, we got it. It actually feels a little surreal.”

Realistically, the Indians’ victory last week over Rustin all but sealed the deal. With a banged-up Octorara giving up 30 points in forfiets, the chances of an upset were slight at best. But the Braves do have some solid wrestlers among the guys that do strap on the headgear, so Matz and the Indians were taking nothing for granted.

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“Octorara has a lot of good wrestlers,” said Matz. “We knew they were going to come out and battle, and we couldn’t come in here already celebrating. Fortunately, we were able to match up a lot of our better guys to get some quality competition in. We got the matchups we wanted.”

The first match of the night, between Unionville’s Mike Caldwell and Troy McBride of Octorara at 126 pounds, was one of those matchups of two of the better guys in the league at the weight.

After a scoreless first, Caldwell broke the match open a bit in the second, locking up a merkle for two near-fall points, then, after cutting McBride loose for one, once again hit the merkle, this time just for a takedown. Caldwell added a third-period reversal for a 6-1 final.

“I knew (McBride) was a solid wrestler,” said Caldwell. “He came in 12-2, so I knew he could wreslte. I’m pretty fmailiar with him anyway from wrestling in the offseason. He’s really strong, so I just had to keep pushing the pace of the match so he couldn’t take advantage of that strength.”

The Braves then reeled off victories in four of the next five bouts, with only a pin by the Indians’ Tyler Crossman at 152 breaking up the string. The Braves got wins by decision from John Carnes (138) and Greg Bowman (145), a pin from JT Thompson (160) and a major decision from Nick Prange (170). At that point, Octorara actually had the edge on the scoreboard, 16-9.

There was a bout at 285, though, and matched up the Indians’ Will Hart with Octorara’s James Warburton. The scoreless tie was broken in the second when Hart broke free for an escape, then secured the takedown with a lateral drop on the edge. When the two came back to center, Hart hooked up a butcher and got the slap of the mat at 3:14.

“I felt confident coming in that I could win,” said Hart. “He’s a big, strong guy I wasn’t taking lightly, but I pinned him the last time we wrestled, too, so I knew I could do it. I thought we wrestled really well as a team today, and I think we’re all just pumped that now we got the last one done and can get us up on the banner as champs.”

Unionville closed out the night with a pair of victories. Nate Chaclas notched three takedowns in a 9-5 decision at 120. At 126, Mitchell Camp spotted the Braves’ Tyler Day a 4-0 lead, but reversed Day to his back for a pin in 1:27.

“It’s been a total team effort,” said Matz. “Every guy here, the varsity, the JVs, and all the coaches bought into the philosophy and made it happen. I can’t give enough credit to my assistants, Ian Crampton, Todd Szewczyk, Tony DiMarco, Colin Ely and Shawn Stewart. Each one of them brings something different to the table, and we all worked really well together.”